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February 05, 2009

Panel Discusses Stimulus Dealings

Special Report With Bret Baier

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse. Crisis could turn into catastrophe for families and businesses across the country. And I refuse to let that happen.

SEN. TOM COBURN, (R) OKLAHOMA: This is a skunk! This bill stinks! It is slow, it is unfocused, and it is unending.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: It is a waste of money. It is a broken process. And the president, as far as I'm concerned, has been AWOL in providing leadership on something as important as this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, there you see President Obama today weighing in on the economic stimulus package and what happens if it doesn't pass, and a trio of Republican senators saying this really is not a good bill.

Just within the past couple of hours, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor that they will be working into the midnight hours. He said "we'll be burning the midnight oil tonight in order to complete a stimulus bill."

He said he's hopeful the Senate will achieve consensus and agree to a bill we feel good about in the next 12 hours. So we will see.

Some analytical observations about the stimulus bill from Fred Barnes, executive editor of "The Weekly Standard," Juan Williams, senior correspondent of National Public Radio, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Fred, the majority leader believes that there is a deal in the making. Do you?

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": A deal? There is a deal with all the Democrats voting for the bill, and maybe a couple of Republicans. If you call that bipartisanship, OK. I don't. But there's not really a deal.

Look, the fact is most Democrats, including the leadership, and, so far as I can tell, President Obama, they do not want to reduce the size of this. Do we have this bill that was, what, $819 billion in the House, it's going to be bigger in the Senate. People complained that that was too big. Now it's bigger in the Senate.

Republicans have gotten a couple of little things, but they really don't amount to much, and this thing is going to be huge.

What has surprised me is, one, that President Obama is pretty late-it is true--he is pretty late to be getting involved in this game. He outsourced the drafting of it to Nancy Pelosi in the House, and then, I don't know about the Senate.

And now he's gotten -- I hate to use the word "hysterical." There must be some word that is a little softer than that, but, you know, talking about a catastrophe, and that things are going to get worse, and lose 5 million more jobs.

My own view is that America would be better off, the economy would be better off, the recovery would come sooner if there were no bill passed at all rather than this bill.

BAIER: In "The Washington Post" the president had an opinion editorial. In that he said if this is not done, "The recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point we may not be able to reverse."

Juan, what about that?

JUAN WILLIAMS, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: This is what Major Garrett had to say in his segment, Bret, when he talked about the President's mood, according to White House officials, being combative and impatient now, that he has shifted, I think, from the idea that he can convince Republicans to do some kind of deal that would give his dream 80 votes for this stimulus package in the Senate.

I think that's all gone now. I think this has been a very rocky week for the president.

But what's been very clear is that he lost control. I don't know about losing control of the congress. He says old habits die hard in the bipartisan type of arguments there, the wrangling will goes on.

But he lost control of setting the framework for the discussion, the national debate about the stimulus package. Republicans have succeeded. We just saw it in the sound bytes that you played, in portraying this excessive spending by a very liberal Democratic president and an out-of-control Democratic congress.

And what you saw in the editorial, or the op-ed piece, I should say, and what we're going to see from President Obama when he has his news conference Monday, he is going full board now to say this is about helping in a time of crisis, people who are unemployed and people who don't have healthcare.

That's a different way of looking at it than the way Republicans have succeeded. And I might say, when I say "succeeded," I mean it, because if you look at the poll numbers now, we are down to 34 percent of the American people supporting this package.

BAIER: Charles, before you weigh in, we have a live picture from Newport News, the Air Force I just landing there, the president getting ready to exit there, his first trip as president on Air Force I.

He is heading to a Democratic meeting, and we will hear from him tonight, Charles, pushing, again, this stimulus package.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, he's going to push, but I think Juan is right that the Republicans have won the battle of the substance on the bill, because it's an abomination. It's a trillion dollars which is larded up with special interests and parochial spending on a scale never seen.

So on that, the Republicans have already succeeded.

Now, I think, the larger question is the question of the process. If Republicans say, as they believe in the majority, that the country needs a stimulus, but a real stimulus, stuff that is immediate, temporary, and targeted, as Larry Summers has indicated, they would support it.

As Alice Rivlin, who is the budget director for the Clinton administration has said, you have to separate the real stimulus from the other stuff.

Obama himself writing in "The Post" today admitted that it is two parts. One part is stimulus, and the other is what he calls long-range reconstruction.

Even if you concede it's really good stuff, it's long-range. It shouldn't be accelerated and pushed in the process with no debate, no hearings, any of this.

If you have an emergency, strip out the stimulus, and you could get a consensus on that.

I think it's a mistake for the Republicans who are now negotiating into the night to try to strip out a little here and a little there and ultimately join in taking ownership of an awful bill. It's a mistake. They ought to insist--strip out stimulus. Do all the other stuff later and on the regular democratic process and calendar.

BARNES: Republicans aren't getting enough to take any ownership because Democrats don't want to strip anything out. David Vitter, I think his bill was going to strip out $25 billion in spending, and Democrats voted no.

WILLIAMS: The danger for the Republican here, if the American people decide something needs to be done in a time of urgency, if Obama is able to get back on track with that message, I think it they will say that the Republicans were the ones who got in the way, being obstructionists, instead of having a caring heart.

KRAUTHAMMER: That's why Republicans have to say we would support a clean stimulus and nothing else.

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